Saint Patricks Day Parade - Chicago - 2016

Apparently it is now a requirement to take a selfie in front of the green dyed Chicago River.

Congress Construction

Congress Ave. is under construction, it's a major artery going into the city and connecting to several highways so the thing is a mess.







Something that makes it very interesting is the bridge work.

And it was made very interesting when the construction crews went on strike and everything ground to a halt for weeks, right in the middle of construction season, who knows when all this will be done.

Taste of Chicago

Every summer around the Fourth of July Chicago has the "Taste of Chicago" where local restaurants and food vendors set up tents in Grant Park to sell special treats. It's usually a mass of humanity with more porta-potties then I've ever seen. This is how close I like to get to it:


On a sunny July day I'd rather go geocaching around the city and watch the bunnies on the museum campus. That's the life!This looks like mom and dad (one likes the sun and one likes the shade) the babies are scattered around in neighboring lawns, one of them was skittish and went back to the folks when I got close, the one above didn't seem to mind me.

Vanity Plates III: The Stupidity

Another reason not to have vanity plates - if you break the law, bystanders will find it easier to remember your tags.
This woman was feeding the pigeons - not just throwing bread, but spreading pounds of different kinds of seed on the sidewalk. This is not only against the law in Chicago, it makes for a serious nuisance because of how the birds gather and shit on tourist friendly areas (in this case the railings along the Wacker river walk), and attracts other pests like rats. Feeding the pigeons is a huge pet peeve of mine.

A Lost Gem

The architectural environment of Chicago is ever changing, and needs to be. But sometimes we lose little gems that people hardly notice. The Showmen's Building is being pulled down to make a park for a neighboring condo building that is going up.



I can imagine the Showmen's League is no longer a large group (they were basically a trade union for the "outdoor amusement industry" (circus, carnival and amusement park) workers, so I guess they had to sell their headquarters building, but because it's decorated with their logo elephant, it's a one of a kind gem that will never be seen again.


I first noticed the building because a colleague (who knows I love architecture) asked me about the "Elephant Building," with the elephants over the windows.

Also a sad loss, Harry's Hot Dogs, which was in the building (you can see the awnings in the top picture above). The shop made it 100 years, and closed when the building was slated to be destroyed.


A local cemetery has a memorial to circus people killed in a train accident, called "Showmen's Rest" - I'll blog about that at some point, I'm sure.

Dead traffic lights II

As I noted before there is a traffic light pole I pass daily that lives a precarious existence - they got it again:


This one happened during the evening rush hour, the three cars parked on the far side of the street were all involved somehow. I missed the actual crash and only witnessed the aftermath - I'd love to know what actually happened.

Spring Snow

This winter doesn't seem to want to let Chicago go. We had a week of 70's weather in March and kind of thought that spring was around the corner. But no, we got snow a week later.


It was the damp clumpy stuff and it didn't stay on the ground long (it got into the 50's the next day) but Chicagoans think it's about time they get to ditch the jackets.

Mystery Sign

This sign has always puzzled me. I get what it means, but who posted it? I've never seen another one like it, and the City of Chicago just doesn't strike me as the kind of entity that would put stick figures on warning signs.

How to graphically depict cold.

It's cold in Chicago right now. And it feels even colder when you look at the frozen over river. I don't remember seeing this much ice on the river. A co-worker and I were discussing whether the river would ever totally freeze over when barge went through and broke up the ice. That answered that question.

Dead traffic lights

I walk to work in the south loop area of downtown. I have to cross one particularly busy and dangerous street which involves traffic from four directions, turns with out turn arrow lights, and traffic coming off one of Chicago's busies highways merging with street traffic (often at very high speeds). This makes for some excitement. Also adding to the fun is a fire station less than a block away, if I don't get killed first I'm sure I'm going to witness an ambulance t-boning a bus at some point (I did witness a near miss already).

There is a poor hapless traffic light pole in the middle of this mess that gets taken out on a regular basis. I've decided to document it's violent life:


At one point I thought of the island the light pole stands on as a safe haven to stand on if I didn't make it all the way across the street in one light (which if you don't time it just right will happen, it's six lanes that need to be crossed) - now I know better, the light would have no chance in saving me from an oncoming speeding vehicle.

People in the neighborhood

You never know who you might run into on the streets of Chicago on a sunny fall weekend.




Monks.

Sailors with Big Gulps.

Men painting a building high up on a scaffold.

Construction workers taking a lunch break.

A construction worker welding a beam in the middle of the street.

Young men playing cricket.

A freight train on the el?







This is why I like living in the city, and why I always travel with a camera.

Marketing that makes you go, hmmm.

I can't understand what knowing about tequila has to do with knowing the etymology of "Windy City." If it were beans rather than tequila that might have some connection, but tequila? I don't get it.


Advertising Michigan vacations on the side of a Chicago tour bus? It's a big, billboard-like space, granted, but why not advertise Chicago vacations on the side of a Chicago tour bus? Are they trying to make the tourists who chose Chicago over Michigan regret their decision?

Brand brand

A repetitive sign or an actual "Brand" brand scaffold?

The Sears Tower is missing!

Not a good day to go up to the Sears Tower observation deck

Chicago is Gotham City

Although not as common as in New York and Los Angeles, movie filming does happen quite a bit in Chicago. It's not too exciting to watch since it progresses very slowly (except for the time I saw a mob screaming and running up La Salle street one weekend afternoon) but occasionally you see a celebrity (I saw Sandra Bullock in the Santa Fe building once) and you get to wonder how the little bits they are filming will show up on screen.

Last year large portions of the latest Batman movie were filmed here. The visualization of Gotham City under Chistopher Nolan's leadership shows the fictional city as very art deco. Art deco is a great design style since it can be both very modern and very evocative of the 1920's. For the first Dark Knight movie (Batman Begins) some filming was done in Chicago - enough so that some iconic buildings (like the Chicago Board of Trade) could be seen. This time around a lot more filming was done here.

The now vacant 1920's post office downtown (which, in Sears catalog heyday, was the busiest post office in the wold) was used as both the "Gotham National Bank" and the "Gotham City Police Department." I got to see first hand a little movie magic. They added an addition to the building, that from the front looks very real and part of the building, but the side shot shows how fake it is.

Also a bit of Hollywood fakery were signs posted around the city pointing out filming locations and parking available for crew members. The signs pointed out the filming for "RFK" or "Rory's First Kiss" the title Dark Knight was filmed under. I wonder if false names like that ever work since we all knew what was going on. I do know, however, some people who never noticed the temporary name change on the post office.